What does eating frozen fish have to do with sustainability? Will using new sources for biofuels actually cause indirect greenhouse gas emissions?
The new community blog Global Change answers these and other questions about the environment, sustainability and helping us become better global citizens.
Created in October by Professor Philip Camill of Environmental Studies and Biology, Global Change is an environmentally focused blog aimed at bringing together environmental and social issues prevalent in today's forums.
"I created it as a part of public outreach about what I think, research and teach about," said Camill. "I see what we learn at Bowdoin and share it with the community."
Camill's blog, which is updated daily, discusses current environmental issues with a different perspective.
"If you look at the top environmental blogs, they can get caught up in the day to day minutia about what they're doing...it's easy to lose focus on the bigger questions, like what's it going to take to get us to a more sustainable world? What [does] natural science or social science have to say about how the world is changing economically and socially?" said Camill.
"There's an opportunity for conversation about bringing together environmental and social issues," said Camill.
With the world leaders meeting in Copenhagen this past week to discuss environmental issues and a global push toward sustainability, this blog is well-timed alongside the hot political debates.
However, Camill cautioned that the blog is not political in nature. Rather, the main purpose of the blog is to provide answers to questions that inquiring minds want to know.
Unlike other environmental blogs, which Camill believes to be "narrowly focused," Global Change "draws more heavily on primary literature," which as a result, causes the blog to focus on the bigger picture.
Past posts include the discussion of "Innovative ideas for financing home energy efficiency," provide insight into "New sea level rise estimates-getting worse," and the ever popular "This week's good ideas in campus sustainability."
"I want to engage science, but I also want to engage natural sciences, social sciences and humanities," said Camill. "Everybody has a role in this conversation, and I want to bring them all together."
Just as we can no longer examine the environmental impact strictly from an Americentric perspective, and must look beyond our borders and think globally, Camill looks beyond the borders of science and utilizes concepts and lessons learned from other fields.
By combining concepts derived from outside of the hard sciences with the scientific facts that are plastered in other blogs and the news regularly, Camill hopes to provide a more socially-conscious response to the global issues the world faces.
Camill's blog can be found at www.globalchangeblog.com.